#EAFail: the absolute worst (best?) PR campaign in gaming

EA has been courting controversy and blogger outrage with its marketing stunts …

Every game has a PR campaign behind it, ranging from videos and screenshots to interviews, demos, and free items given out to those who write about games. Some are better than others, but EA has given its campaign for Dante's Inferno a hellish tint, and the results have been both controversial, and highly effective.

The first showpiece took place at E3, where a number of "Christian" protesters showed up holding signs telling showgoers to trade their PlayStations in for "Pray Stations" and other catchy slogans. Our favorite? "EA = Electronic Anti-Christ." A few gaming blogs ran the story of Christians upset over the content of the game, but it was quickly revealed EA had in fact staged the protest via a viral marketing agency.

The gaming press rolled its collective eyes, but Christian bloggers weren't amused. "The institutional acknowledgement that these kinds of protests are the best possible publicity for their target is something Christians might want to bear in mind when the next Dan Brown film rolls around," Margaret Cabaniss of InsideCatholic.com wrote.

CatholicVideoGamers was likewise indignant. "Gamers of all varieties will buy this product if it's, well, actually a good game," they explained. "So instead of engaging in a shamelessly anti-Christian stunt to promote your poor excuse of a product, maybe you ought to work on making this game, you know, something better than a blatant God of War rip-off and make it, ya know, something worthwhile?"

Please harass our booth babes

It gets even better. During Comic-Con, EA ran a contest where show attendees were invited to "commit acts of lust" by taking a picture with one of their booth babes. The best image will be rewarded by a "date" with two models, a limo, and an awkward night of strained conversation.

When our coverage of the story hit Twitter, the meme #EAFail was born, and the response was swift and negative. "You lost a customer who was actually excited about the game," one woman complained. "Next time, no objectifying women."

Destructoid had similar thoughts. "...there’s something repulsive about offering people up as prizes in your PR stunt, especially given game culture’s bad habit of over-sexualizing its female characters," they wrote.

In an ironic twist, a writer from GayGamer was "randomly" chosen as a winner after sending in an image standing next to a male booth "babe." He confronted EA in a long letter on the site.

"I think the contest was somewhat sexist, misogynist, and exploitive, especially since you were sending fans upon ANY booth babe at SDCC; however, as a gay man, I also saw this PR stunt as missed opportunity that resulted in what appears to be a narrow minded view as to what your game's audience can truly be," he wrote. "While I'm not sure if it was intentional or not, this stunt projected a view of your target demographic as lustful heterosexual males, when in reality a larger and larger portion of the gaming population are women and LGBT people." He also points out that the rules meant that anyone was fair game. "I know booth babes (and guys) get paid to man those booths and deal with gawkers, but there are also PR, production, and development people at those booths caught in the crossfire of dealing with people trying to do 'acts of lust' with them to win your contest."

Even more ironically, this occurred just as EA held an event with the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, where the publisher argued that the industry needed to escape the image of its audience as a boy's club of adolescent males. Saying the industry needed to be more friendly to a wider audience while creating a contest the rewarded men panting over models is something of a mixed message.

The easiest path to coverage: payment

In the latest chapter of this fun tale, EA has finally decided to simply send editors of prominent gaming sites checks for $200. The point? If the checks are cashed, the gaming press is greedy. If they're not, the gaming press is wasteful. "By cashing this check you succumb to avarice by harding filthy lucre, but by not cashing it, you waste it, and thereby surrender to prodigality. Make your choice and suffer the consequence for your sin," the included note stated. "And scoff not, for consequences are imminent." The sin theme remains, if nothing else, on-topic.

This has to be one of the first times money has been sent directly to reviewers and editors with the hope that the story is broken publicly, and that's what makes the stunt so devious; of course it's going to be written about. Joystiq cashed the check and donated the money to charity, Kotaku posted video of their check burning. Without having a list of sites that received the faux bribe, it's impossible to tell if anyone actually cashed the check and kept the money.

Cheapy D, who runs the popular deals site CheapAssGamer, weighed in on the check. "Kotaku charges an $8 CPM (cost per 1,000 banner impressions) for their standard advertising banners. Their news post about this PR stunt will likely surpass 40,000 views," he explained. "To err on the safe side, let's say the total cost of the check and fancy box is $300. Since [the post's author] burned the check, EA basically spent the equivalent of a $2.50 CPM for a front page news post on Kotaku. That is an incredible value. Nice job, EA Marketing!"

In a final twist, some commenters on the Kotaku story pointed out the site could have also donated the money to charity, or auctioned off the check and donated the proceeds. "Instead, you disavowed Greed and instead took on Pride, yet another just as evil sin, and wasted the opportunity to help others," one reader wrote. EA may have been more clever than we had at first assumed.

Kyle Orland, staff writer for Crispy Gamer, seemed disgusted by the stunt. "The line between 'clever promotion' and 'blatant journalist bribery' has officially been crossed," he wrote on his Twitter feed. "Congrats, EA."

Of course, the plan is working

Like a reality show contestant, EA isn't here to make friends... it just wants to be talked about. The reaction to these stunts and promotions have have been overwhelmingly negative, but they're being written up, discussed, and the game's theme of hellish temptations is being preserved.

Outraged Christian bloggers, complaining female and LGBT gamers, editors being sent checks made out directly to them—all of this makes for delicious copy, and much of the gnashing of teeth seems to be centered on the fact that the gaming press continues to fall for the contrived controversy to give the company exactly what it wants: coverage. The campaign has been childish, daring, and borderline tasteless. Writing checks directly to game writers is cheaper than advertising on a site, with a much better result.

No matter how upset a few groups may get, this has been a successful way to market the game; we're very much aware we're falling into the trap ourselves. The question is a simple one: are we sinking to EA's level, or is it the other way around?